To compare real-life performance when zoomed-out, we shot this scene with the Canon ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS, the ELPH 310 HS / IXUS 230 HS, the ELPH 300 HS / IXUS 220 HS within a few moments of each other using their best quality JPEG settings.

The lenses on each camera were set to approximately the same field of view and all three cameras were set to Program auto exposure mode.

The ISO sensitivity was manually set to the lowest available 100 ISO setting.

The image above was taken with the Canon ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS. The lens was set to its 5mm (28mm equivalent) maximum wide angle focal length. In Program auto exposure mode the camera metered an exposure of 1/400 at f3.4 at 100 ISO. The original image size was 3MB. The crops are taken from the areas marked with red rectangles and presented here at 100%.

Overall, results from the ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS are pretty good. Image detail is crisp, contrast is good and the colours are natural looking. The ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS has overexposed the shot slightly, the right side of the histogram is clipped and a better result with no loss of shadow detail could have been achieved with about half a stop less.

The fact that all three cameras in this comparison use the same 12.1 Megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor says a lot for how different lenses and processing can affect the final result. The most obvious example of that in the crops is the Chromatic aberration which is causing colour fringing in the first three crops from the ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS. In the first crop there's a blue colour fringe which outlines the chapel and in fact extends the full length of the horizon - you can see it running along the top of the cliff in the lighthouse shot. In the third crop there's a red colour fringe running vertically along the window frame edge.

Overall there's a slight texture to flat areas which means that the finest level of detail isn't reproduced as cleanly as it could be. There's also a slight softening of edges in the crops that are closer to the frame edges. The lighhouse isn't a cleanly defined white rectangle and the roofs and window frames in the foreground look a little soft. But the final crop from the centre of the frame shows improved edge detail, the window frames are more clearly defined and you can easily make out the gaps between the ridge tiles in the foreground.

Compared with the ELPH 310 HS / IXUS 230 the crops from the ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS suffer from the same issues, only to a slightly worse extent. The ELPH 310 HS / IXUS 230 has the same fringing, only not quite so bad, and the edge detail looks a little soft, only not so soft as on the ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS. The lighthouse is more clearly resolved in the ELPH 310 HS / IXUS 230 crop and red fringing on the window frames in the third crop isn't so noticeable. Finally, in the fourth crop, from the centre of the frame, edges are more crisply defined as is fine image detail like the roof tiles. So a marginally better result from the ELPH 310 HS / IXUS 230.

Compared with the ELPH 300 HS / IXUS 220 HS, there's more of a margin, and its in the ELPH 300 HS / IXUS 220 HS' favour. The ELPH 300 HS / IXUS 220 HS' 5x zoom lens doesn't suffer from chromatic aberration to anything like the degree the ELPH 510 HS / IXUS 1100 HS does. There's a little bit of fringing on the third crop, but you have to look for it. Resolution of fine and edge detail on the ELPH 300 HS / IXUS 220 HS crops is generally better and it's more consistent from the edge to the centre of the frame.

What these three sets of crops demonstrate is that with the same sensor, the quality deteriorates slightly as the zoom range increases, which is not all that surprising. It's worth reiterating our usual caveat that you're only likely to spot these differences if you're looking for them at the 100 percent actual pixel view. In a side-by side comparison at, say, 25 percent, you'd be hard pushed to tell these shots apart.